Life as a family of four

Pipe dreams

So this blog has been a bit of a lame duck really. Picture a western ghost town with accumulating filth obscuring the windows and tumbleweeds bouncing down the long and dusty street. We were going to kick it off again on June 1 with LGBT blogging for families day, but it’s hard to commence things on a given date. It’s much like saying you’ll start your diet on Monday, or next month, or whatever. Never works. You just find another excuse to procrastinate and put it off.

So today I was feeling somewhat inspired, I thought I better go with it. I’m not sure how it happened, it must be due to the lightheadedness or something. Feeling quite flu-y and consequently drained and sleep deprived, but oh well, you take these things as they come.

I have been reading Frances Mayes Under the Tuscan Sun, and I almost can’t stand it it’s so beautiful. I can practically smell the herbs and wildflowers, feel the sun beaming out of the pages of the book. It’s killing me in my currently weakened state. This miserable cold weather we’re having makes me want to shrivel up in a little ball and cry.

I’ve actually been to Cortona where the book is set, so I know exactly the markets and the laneways and the terraces and the fields and I can visualise it so clearly.

Given the state of what the fuck am I going to do with my life that I am labouring under at the moment, I have been playing the what would you do if you had all the money in the world and could do whatever you want game lately, and right now… Right now I would pack up everything we have, find a lovely run down villa in the Tuscan hills and fix it up. Have a huge vegetable garden, eat off the land, preserve for the winter, have a chicken coop, have fruit trees. Have the whole garden as a massive kitchen garden. I can see it. FenFox would go to the local school and during the summer while away her time reading under the fruit trees, when she wasn’t jaunting off to France or Australia or having friends stay by us. Have a live in nanny or manny on hand for McBean, so I could spend my time in the garden and kitchen if I wanted to. I can picture him so clearly there – a little half naked Raphael cherub roaming the countryside getting up to mischief, brown as a berry from the sun, with his blond hair and eyes the colour of the sky over Siena. Clark could set up an office if she wanted to work from home, or else commute to Firenze. Clark of course would be the sticking point with her hatred of the heat, but we’d be so close to the Swiss Alps that I might be able to get away with it on the promise of yearly skiing trips.

Sigh.

There’s just something about Tuscany that is so amazing and welcoming and home-like. I mean, I know I am part Italian, but my family comes from the deep south of Italy, and I’ve never felt comfortable south of Rome. I think it’s more than that, with Tuscany, but then I also think a lot of people feel that way. It’s an amazing place.

So I’ll stop now, lusting over my beautiful Tuscan villa. It’s a very nice dream to have, but doesn’t answer the very practical question of what the fuck AM I going to do with my life that is looming and omnipresent.